Flying
by TheNextFolchart
Summary: Katie didn't understand why they called it "falling in love." (Kissing him felt more like flying.)


**Flying**

* * *

><p>The envelope in the letterbox was addressed to Katherine Veronica Bell, which was how Mr. Bell knew it was junk - nobody ever called Katie <em>Katherine<em>.

"Post came," he said to his wife as he came in through the screen door. He dropped a stack of it on the table for Mrs. Bell to organize - when they'd first been married he had sorted the post himself, but lately the arthritis in his hands made it difficult to separate the magazines from the bills and paperwork.

"Thank you, darling." Mrs. Bell was already dressed for work in an elegant pantsuit. "I'll look through it this afternoon, I've got to run to the office."

"Busy day ahead of you?" her husband asked, kissing her on the cheek while she reached for her keys.

"Extremely." Mrs. Bell reached around to tighten her dirty-blonde ponytail. "Two new cases at the firm, plus the Benson lawsuit - I don't know how I'm going to get it all done."

"You will," Mr. Bell said confidently. "You're the best damn trial lawyer that firm has ever seen. If anyone can do it, it's you."

Mrs. Bell grinned and rocked up onto her toes to give him a peck on the lips. "I'm going to be late." She opened the door and swung a briefcase over her arm. "Tell Katie happy birthday from me before she leaves for school, will you? And tell her I promise I'll be home by dinner."

"I will."

"See if she'll help you sort through the post!" Mrs. Bell added over her shoulder as she headed for the car.

"I will!"

Mr. Bell watched his wife drive away, and then he padded back inside to the kitchen table, where a bleary-eyed Katie was sitting in her pyjamas. "Good morning, birthday girl," he said to his newly-eleven-year-old daughter.

"Morning." Katie yawned. "Has Mum gone?"

"Just left." Mr. Bell sat down beside her. "She'll be back by dinner. She promised."

"She always promises." Katie said it under her breath, but he heard it anyway.

"She says happy birthday."

"That's nice of her."

"It's not her fault, Katie." He slid the stack of post in her direction. "Help me go through all of this?"

Katie shrugged. "Okay."

"What do you want for your birthday breakfast?" Mr. Bell asked, standing and walking over to the pantry. "Anything your heart desires, and it's yours."

Katie moved a few magazines into the Junk pile. "Cake, of course," she said with a grin.

Her father groaned. "Anything your heart desires _except _cake."

"No cake?" Katie put a letter addressed to her mother into the Important pile.

"Not until dinner."

"Fair enough." More magazines for the Junk section. "Bacon, then."

"Bacon," Mr. Bell repeated. "Coming right up. Eleven strips for eleven years?"

"Twelve," Katie said with a grin. "One to grow on." A magazine, a bill, a postcard from Dr. Granger reminding them about their dental checkup, a contract, another bill - "Hey, Dad, this one's for me!"

"Which one?"

Katie was already tearing through the glue that held the envelope shut. "It says it's for Katherine Veronica Bell." She wrinkled her nose. "Who calls me Katherine?"

"Probably junk," her father said, but he let her open it anyway.

"It's got a funny icon," Katie said as she unfolded the letter. "Look, it's like a little crest. It's got a snake and an eagle and a lion and a badger, and it says - Dad, what's Hogwarts?"

"What?" Mr. Bell put down his frying pan and moved back to the table.

"It says, 'Dear Miss Bell, we are pleased to welcome you to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.'" Katie frowned at the letter. "Is it a joke?"

Mr. Bell took the letter and scanned it once. "Must be a joke," he said as the doorbell rang. "Go get that, Katie."

"Okay." Katie ran to answer the door, and Mr. Bell read over the letter a second time while his bacon burned in the frying pan.

"Dad?"

"What?"

Katie came back into the kitchen looking terrified. In her wake was a tall man with a long white beard and twinkling blue eyes. "This is Professor Dumbledore. He's here about the letter."

"Katie," Mr. Bell said quietly. "What have I told you about inviting strangers into the house?"

"I - " Katie looked troubled. "He said he's a wizard."

"A wizard," Mr. Bell scoffed. "You're eleven years old now, it's time to grow out of nonsense like - "

"Excuse me," the man called Dumbledore spoke up. "But I'm afraid your bacon is burning. Allow me." He pulled a long, thin stick from his robes and waved it in the general direction of the stove.

"What are you - " began Mr. Bell as the bacon rose out of the pan of its own accord and arranged itself on a plate.

"Wow," whispered Katie.

The man called Dumbledore looked pleased with himself. "Please, sit down and allow me to explain," he said, taking a seat in front of the Important pile. "We have a lot to discuss, Katie Bell."

* * *

><p>The train ride to Hogwarts was long, and by the time they pulled in to the Hogsmeade station Katie had made a few friends who were more than happy to explain wizarding life to her.<p>

"My mum told me all about this part," said the girl called Cho Chang as they stepped off the train together and faced a large lake. Cho was a pureblood witch, she'd told Katie, which meant her entire family had gone to Hogwarts. Katie, on the other hand was something called a muggleborn, which some people would try to use as an insult, but she shouldn't take it personally. "First years take boats across the lake."

"Be careful not to fall out," added a boy named Cormac McLaggen, who tended to be dramatic. "My brother said there's a monster living in there who'll _eat _you."

Katie eyed the water warily as she climbed into a tiny rowboat. "What kind of monster?"

"An octopus," Cormac said.

"A _squid_," Cho corrected. "A Giant Squid, to be exact."

"Squid, octopus, same thing. Either way, be careful not to touch anything sharp," Cormac said. "It can probably smell blood from miles away. If you cut yourself, it'll come for you."

"Oh, it will _not_," Katie said, rolling her eyes. "Can it?"

Cho bit her lip. "I'm not sure."

"If it can smell blood, can't it smell the blood that's already pumping in our bodies?" Katie asked, narrowing her eyes at Cormac.

He shrugged. "If it can, we're all doomed." He didn't appear to be worried. "D'you think you'll go out for Quidditch, Bell?"

"What's Quidditch?"

"It's a sport," Cho jumped in. "Played on broomsticks. Four positions, seven players, three types of ball." She explained the rules of the game while the rowboat glided across the lake. "My mum played Chaser when she was at Hogwarts," Cho said as she pointed out the distant Quidditch pitch.

"My mum was a Keeper," Cormac bragged.

"My mum's a lawyer," Katie said quietly, and she suddenly felt very, very small.

* * *

><p>"So you're going to try for Quidditch, aren't you?" Cho asked a few weeks into term. The two of them hadn't been sorted into the same house - Katie was a Gryffindor, Cho was in Ravenclaw - but they still made a point of eating breakfast together each morning before going their separate ways for classes.<p>

"I dunno." Katie crunched down on a piece of bacon. "McGonagall says first years aren't allowed."

"So don't tell the Captain you're a first year."

Katie smirked. "I've never even flown before, outside of flying lessons."

"I'll teach you." Cho spread butter across her toast. "I'm an excellent flier. A few sessions with me and you'll be perfect."

Each time Katie's bacon was almost gone, the plate refilled itself. She'd lost count of how many strips she'd eaten, but it must have been at least ten by now. "Okay."

"Great." Cho dropped her toast and stood up. "Come on."

"Now?" Katie looked longingly at her bacon.

"Yes, now! The sooner the better!" Cho marched out of the Great Hall, and Katie, after stuffing a strip of bacon in her pocket, followed. "First step is to have confidence," Cho said when they'd reached the Quidditch Pitch. A handful of brooms were lying on the ground in a row; Cho picked one up and offered it to Katie. "Shouldn't be a problem for a Gryffindor like you. You've learned how to take off, yes?"

"Yes." Katie took the broom and swung her leg over. "Just kick off, right?" She kicked hard and let herself hover five feet up in the air.

"Got to go higher than that if you want to play Quidditch!" called Cho, and Katie urged her broom upward the way Madam Hooch had taught them in class.

"How's this?"

"Perfect! Stay right there." Cho ran to fumble around in a large shed and reappeared holding a battered leather Quaffle. She tossed the ball up to Katie, who caught it one-handed while clinging tightly to the handle of broom with the other hand. Cho pointed at the cluster of goalposts at one end of the field. "Now go to those hoops and score a goal!"

Tightening her grip on her broomstick, Katie obeyed.

"Faster, Katie!"

She leaned forward and sped up.

"Katie Bell with the Quaffle," Cho called through cupped hands, as if she were a commentator. "The other Chasers are falling behind - she's got a clear shot - this is for the win - she shoots - "

A boy shot up from out of nowhere and plucked the Quaffle from midair. "What the hell d'you think you're doing?" he yelled at Katie.

Down on the ground, Cho Chang had gone silent, but Katie couldn't stop - she'd been planning on zooming around to the other side of the hoops to catch the Quaffle before it made it to the ground, and the momentum kept her moving forward - she reached out with one hand to brace herself for a collision - knocked the Quaffle out of the boy's arms - sent it flying through the hoop - she still couldn't stop, she was going to _fall -_

The boy grabbed the back of her broom and tugged hard; Katie pitched forward and tumbled off the broom -

"Katie!" screamed Cho.

Katie didn't even have time to gasp before the boy was streaking after her. He grabbed her by the upper arm and swooped her up onto his own broom. "You okay?" he asked, holding her tightly against him.

Katie nodded as she watched her broom fall down into the stands below.

"What are you _doing _here?" the boy asked. She was sitting in front of him, her back pressed up against his chest, and she could feel his heart beating nearly as quickly as hers was.

"Practicing," Katie said finally. "For tryouts."

"Who _are _you?" the boy asked. "Who gave you permission to be out here?"

Katie glanced at the ground. Cho was running back up to the castle as fast as she could. _Coward. _"I'm Katie," she said. "Gryffindor. First year. I don't have permission."

She felt him shake with a breathless laugh. "First year," he repeated. "Merlin. Do you even - do you even know how to _fly_?"

"Obviously I do," she shot back.

"Obviously not," the boy said easily as he started a gentle descent to the ground. "You're going to get yourself killed." When their feet were planted on solid earth again, he stepped off his broomstick and offered her his hand. "My name's Wood," he said. "Oliver Wood. I play Keeper for Gryffindor."

He was handsome, Katie couldn't help but notice as she shook his hand, with clear blue eyes and windswept blonde hair and rough callouses on his hands from catching the Quaffle so many times. "Are you going to get me in trouble?" she asked.

He smirked. "I probably should, for your own safety."

"But you won't?"

Oliver rubbed his chin. "You've never flown before?"

"I have," Katie said. "In flying lessons. Once or twice."

He looked thoughtful. "In your flying lessons, did they teach you how to throw a Quaffle?"

Katie shook her head. "That was all me," she said, gesturing vaguely at the sky.

Oliver nodded appraisingly. "It was impressive."

She raised her eyebrows. "Really?"

"Yeah."

"Even when I fell?"

Oliver laughed, and Katie felt a thrill shoot through her. "In my opinion, if you aren't willing to die over Quidditch, you aren't playing hard enough." He leaned his broom up against the stands and beckoned to her. "Come with me."

"Where, to get me in trouble?" She was following him anyway.

"No." He led her into the castle and up toward the Gryffindor Common Room. "To find Charlie Weasley. Gryffindor Seeker and Captain." He gave her a smile. (She decided she liked that smile.) "We're going to see about getting you on the team."

* * *

><p>"Look, Bell," Oliver Wood said a year later, "I'm the Captain of this team, and I say you will be at the five a.m. practices!"<p>

Katie rolled her eyes. "You're insane if you think I'm getting up at five in the morning to practice Quidditch."

"Do you want to be a winner?" he snapped.

"Not at the expense of my sleep!"

"If you want to stay on my team, you have to come to all the practices."

Katie exhaled heavily. "I just don't understand why they're _private_ sessions," she said. "Why do I have to come down here by myself an entire hour before the rest of the team gets there?"

"Because you're the youngest."

"I'm a second year!" Katie said it loudly enough for the students playing chess in the corner of the common room to look over. "Harry Potter's a first year, I have more experience than he does. I was on the reserves last year. I played in two matches. You told me yourself I did well!"

"You did do well." Oliver was trying to lower his voice. "But you didn't do _excellently._"

"I'm still better than Harry."

"Harry's a Seeker. He doesn't get involved with the Quaffle. Of the people who do the actual scoring, you're the one who needs the most training. So you will meet me tomorrow morning at five o'clock sharp on the Quidditch Pitch, or you're off the team." Oliver turned on his heel and marched up to his dormitory.

"Git," Katie said under her breath, but she went up to her dormitory and set the alarm on her muggle watch to go off at four forty-five.

* * *

><p>"Wood, you <em>prat<em>," Katie called into the boy's change room at the end of the disastrous Hufflepuff match. "I know you're in there!"

Fred Weasley poked his head out the door. "He's still in the showers."

"Trying to drown himself, we think," George added from behind him.

Katie sighed. "Four years of this," she said. "Four years I've been on this team, and _every single time_ we lose he pulls something like this." She pulled the door open a little wider. "Are either of you naked?"

"No."

"Under our clothes, maybe."

Katie rolled her eyes. "I'm coming in." She pushed past Fred and marched into the change room. "Oliver Wood," she yelled in the general direction of the showers. "Come _out_here."

Nothing but the sound of water falling from the shower head.

"You can't do this every time we lose, Oliver!"

Silence from the shower. Fred and George ducked out of the change room.

"When I joined this team, I was under the impression that you were a professional. But this moping is childish, and I'm sick of it."

Nothing.

"Oliver!" Katie slammed her fist against the wall. "Harry Potter, your star Seeker - remember him? He's in the Hospital Wing right now, and his bloody Captain is sitting in the bloody shower pouting over a _game_, and it's ridiculous and stupid and _pathetic_."

"Go away," came the muffled voice from the showers.

"If you don't come out here right now, I am going to resign!"

A loud sigh, and then the water turned off. "Merlin, woman," Oliver said as he stepped out of the showers, fully clothed in soaking wet Quidditch robes. "Let me kill myself in peace."

She slapped him.

"What the _hell?_"

"Go be a supportive Captain," she fumed, "and visit Harry."

"Katie, I - "

"I thought you cared more about people than about the game, but that's not the behavior you've demonstrated tonight, and frankly I'm disgusted."

"I _do _care about - "

"No, no, I should have known better." Katie threw her hands in the air - and gone were the days when her palms were smooth and soft; this skin was calloused from throwing the Quaffle, same as Oliver's were. "If you aren't willing to die over Quidditch, you aren't playing hard enough, isn't that what you always say?"

Oliver shook his wet hair out of his eyes. "If you'd just listen to me - "

"And maybe instead of making us all feel bad, you could get your arse out of the shower and act like the world doesn't end every time we lose."

"I'm not trying to - "

"Because there are more important things in life than Quidditch, and - "

He seized her by her shoulders and kissed her hard.

"I know," he said, panting slightly when they broke apart, "that there are more important things than Quidditch."

And without another word he stepped around her and swept out of the change room.

* * *

><p>"So," Katie said quietly when they were alone - the Quidditch Cup was theirs, and the partying had finally died down, and there was nobody left in the common room except the Quidditch Captain and his Chaser. "Are we ever going to talk about it?"<p>

He draped his arm around the back of the couch so it was brushing her shoulders and crossed one leg over the other. "Talk about what?"

"That kiss. Months ago. In the change rooms."

"Oh." Oliver was looking into the fire. "Have we not talked about that yet?"

"No. We haven't." She studied his profile and added, "There hasn't been time for us to be alone to talk about it."

"Well." He shifted so he could look at her. "What do you want me to say?"

"I want to know why you did it."

He laughed once. "Well, _that's _obvious, don't you think?"

Katie bit down on her lip and dared to lean back against his arm. "Is it?"

"Why do you think people generally kiss other people, Bell?"

"Because they fancy each other." Her heart was pounding just as hard as it had been that very first day, when she'd fallen, when he'd caught her. . . .

"So there you have it." His clear blue eyes met her brown ones, and he was whispering, and he looked almost nervous. "I fancy you." He pronounced each syllable very carefully.

"You do?"

He nodded. "I do. I have for a long time."

"A long time," Katie repeated. "Like - since the beginning of the year?"

He shook his head. "Longer."

"Since last year?"

He was smirking. "Since the moment I met you. Since I saw you up there with the Quaffle - quite serendipitous that I was there, don't you think, considering the way you nearly fell and killed yourself." He was looking at her with an expression she'd never seen him wear before; it was tender, soft, not at all intense. "I have fancied you since you knocked the Quaffle out of my arms and scored your very first goal."

A beat. "You're lying."

"I'm not."

"You thought I was terrible at Quidditch."

"I've never said that."

"You made me come early for practices."

He grinned. "I wanted to see you."

Katie felt her jaw drop. "You wanted to - five a.m. practices were your way of _flirting_?"

He shrugged and let his hand trace down her shoulder to her upper arm.

"Oliver," Katie said, but she couldn't help the small smile on her face. "Why didn't you just _say _something?"

"Maybe I was waiting for _you _to say something." His fingers were tracing her collarbone, and she was shocked at how smooth the pads of his fingers were despite the callouses. "So?"

"So?"

"Say something. Do you fancy me?"

She swallowed. "I kissed you back, didn't I?"

He let one side of his mouth quirk up into a smile. "You did." He cocked his head slightly, as if he were asking for her permission.

"No," she said as she moved closer to him. "No, I think it's my turn."

(Kissing him felt like flying.)

* * *

><p><em>[Pirate Ship Battles: Love At First Sight, Katie BellOliver Wood. Prompts: 1(Lawyer) 2(Blood) 3(Octopus) 4(Icon) 7(Letterbox) 9(Arthritis) 10(Serendipitous)]_

_[Disney Character Competition: Prince Eric - write about someone falling in love with someone who saved their life]_

_[Major&Minor Arcana Class: Write about someone falling in love for the first time]_


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